Sunday, 14 March 2010

Sister wants me to make a cranach dress for her. Insane, she thinks I can make the most difficult dress you can probably find in the era with my experience :-DDDNevermind, I'll try to do my best...I drew a modern pattern with six seams. I also tried to use krea's period pattern, but sis wants to wear bra under the dress and the pattern with two seams didn't work.When I had the top fitted, I measured the length from each seam to the ground on my sister. I made the skirt in the same way as the full circle skirts, but this one was only half a circle (for the upper edge: o=pi*r where o is girth). I folded the canvas for the middle of each piece to be bias. The skirt should sweep nicer this way.I sewed the skirt in the side seams, and I made an extra back seam to create a slit under the top.I put the skirt on the top, right sides together, and sewed in the marked line.You may notice that I have already made sleeves as well (the easiest shirt's ones) and that I ironed vlieselin to the center front seam allowances. It will be three layers of fabric and two of vlieselin thick so that the lacing wouldn't wave when tied firmly.When I was hemming the skirt, I used a little trick. If you have ever hemmed a wide skirt, you know the edge tries to escape as it's wider than it whould be. I serged the lower edge and used a differential feed higher than 1. That causes the serging to gather the fabric. After ironing the hem, sewing was very easy.I left the sleeves long, because they should be pulled up to support the slit parts of the sleeves on the upper dress. I don't know yet how much of the sleeve will be necessary.

Thursday, 4 March 2010

I have the corset with whalebones, so only a few operations have left.I cut a band, serged one side and pinned it on the right side of the corset to the lower edge. I folded the ends up for the hem to be finished in a nice way.I sewed in haf a cm not to hit the whalebones.I turned the band to the wrong side of the corset. I sewed at the right side exactly in the former seam, the stitches almost aren't visible this way.The ends must be sewn to the corset in hand.I already had the length and position of the shoulder strip so when I had the whole corsed hemmed, I sewed it on, again from the right side in the former seam.I added some grommets for the lacing.I'm looking forward to the first performance in the new costume :-D

Wednesday, 3 March 2010

The front edges were the easiest as far as inserting the whalebones.I took a strip of fabric and sewed it in less than the middle to the front center of the corset.I ironed the seam so that the corset would be on the left and the strip on the right. Then I sewed a tunnel in the width of the whalebone. The whalebone was inserted and the strip ironed leftwards.The other seam seamed more difficult, but once I tried it, I found out I was scared in vain:-)The seam allowances were pressed each one to other side. I cut a strip of fabric in the width of the allowances and sewed it on them, so that the final width of the tunnel would again match the whalebone.The lower edge should be hemmed for about half a centimeter, so I ended the tunnel here. I had to sew it twice - to each seam allowance of the corset separately. I tried if the whalebone likes it :-)When I had all the tunnels, I put the whalebones in. I marked the upper edge with a marker.As the upper edge should be hemmed as well, I cut them half a cm under the mark, inserted and finished the tunnel at the top in the same way.

This chemise should belong to the skirts.The pattern is a T with slanted sleams from the neckline to the armpit.I cut and sewed the body and the sleeves.I put these together and folded the edge of the neckline. I sewed through the seam allowance twice to create two tunnels.At first, I wanted to pleat the neckline and the sleeves. Then I found out I probably didn't have enough fabric (and time) :-/At second, I wanted to put a cord in the tunnel. The neckline is quite wide and the shoulders would fall down at the dance.So at third, I decided to put two rubber cords in the tunnel.You can see that it looks better with only one rubber cord and one free tunnel..So I threaded the cord to the inner tunnel. With the rubber, the shoulders stretch and don't fall. I know, it's cheating :-.The finished gathering on the sleeve.I'm looking forward to the first performance in the costume:-)

Monday, 1 March 2010

This one should match the twoskirts. My dance leader has made a corset that started to wrinkle. In my opinion it was a bit because of the thin canvas she used, so I bought a tent canvas for mine :-D

I drew a pattern according to my dress pattern book. I'm a greenhorn, so it didn't fit perfectly and needed a little fitting.

This is the state when I already had finished the fitting (even when not yet sure with the shoulder strips).I decided to edit the lower hem so that the corset would be shorter at the hips.I cut it in two layers - I pinned the same seams together for the corset to be symmetrical.